Through blogging and working w/ Ed Tech companies I come across a large amount of educational tools. To make things easier I have created
top 10 lists, curated lists on
Pinterest and
Edshelf, and also created
digital books, to help make things easier for myself and others. However, I always wanted to create a bucket list if I was starting in a new district/school etc. Hopefully, people will find this list useful and perhaps a nice way to save districts money.
David Kapuler's Bucket List
Web 2.0 Sites
- 9 Slides - A fantastic site for adding narration or video to a wide variety of presentations.
- 19 Pencils - A great free site for teachers to curate the web and find resources to add to a customized class web page.
- Animoto - One of the most popular sites for education for creating stunning videos and presentations.
- Biteslide - A wonderful free site w/ educational portal for students to create digital scrapbooks and projects.
- BoomWriter - An amazing site for students to create digital books in a safe/secure environment. These books are then published and can be ordered. Also, has an educational portal where teachers can create classes and student accounts.
- ClassBadges - A new site for teachers to award digital badges for student accomplishments.
- ClassDojo - A terrific web 2.0 sites for teachers to manage student behavior in a fun innovative way.
- Edshelf - A wonderful site for finding, curating, and reviewing educational web tools.
- Glogster EDU - One of the most popular Web 2.0 sites around for creating interactive posters/projects w/ educational portal.
- Kidblog - A safe secure way for students to create and learn how to blog.
- MentorMob - An innovative site for curating the web into learning playlists to help support guided learning.
- Meograph - A new site for 4 Dimensional digital storytelling.
- PowToon - A fantastic new site for creating stunning animated presentations.
- SpellingCity - The best site around w/ educational portal for teachers to create Vocabulary & Spelling lists for students and integrate them into educational games.
- VoiceThread - Might be the most popular Web 2.0 site around ideal for digital storytelling.
Educational iOS Apps
- The Answer Pad - An amazing web tool and iPad app for capturing and assessing student data.
- Brainstormer - A great iOS app for brainstorming in a visual way that is ideal for generating writing prompts and more.
- Doceri - The perfect all-in-one solution for the iPad that allows teachers/students to create on an interactive whiteboard then record/screencast.
- Educreations - A great free app/web tool to find and create video lessons.
- Experience Life - A beautiful interactive iPad app that is ideal for learning about the different systems inside the body. Great for MS/HS Science/Biology teachers.
- FluencyFinder - The best iOS Reading Assessment app for teachers. Ideal for grades 1st-8th w/ instant real-time feedback as well. New updates will include questions for Reading Comprehension.
- Go Class - A excellent and robust web tool/iPad app for teachers to create lessons on an iPad and share w/ their students as well as track student progress for instant feedback.
- The Grading Game - A fun iOS app to help strengthen one's grammar and writing skills.
- Level It Books - The perfect iOS app for scanning a book barcode to get a Reading Level.
- Nearpod - One of the best all-in-one solutions for the iPad that helps teachers engage and share presentations w/ students.
- Sentence Builder - A iOS app for El Ed students to help build/strengthen their grammar/writing skills.
- Show Me - A great free iPad app for creating and recording tutorials/lessons.
- Story Patch - A fantastic iPad app for digital storytelling that teaches the different parts of a story.
- Teachers Tech - A wonderful iOS app for teachers to find "how to" tutorials/videos on educational Web 2.0 technologies.
- Timeline Maker - A great iPad app for creating timelines.
- Toontastic - One of my favorite free iPad apps to use w/ kids to create to digital stories.
Digital Videos in the Classroom
While there are a number of paid solutions for finding educational videos such as Discovery Streaming (United Streaming) or BrainPOP, there are a number for excellent free solutions as well.
- Backpack TV - A new site for finding educational videos on a wide variety of subjects.
- Explania - A great site for finding educational and instructional animated videos.
- Knowmia - A fantastic place to create and find 1000's of educational lessons.
- Mobento - A terrific place to find educational videos w/ the added ability to search for spoken words inside a video.
- Neok12 - One of the best places to find educational videos, lessons, and games.
- WatchKnowLearn - A great free site similar to Discovery Streaming for finding educational K-12 videos.
- YouTube Teachers - YouTube offers a educational portal for teachers for finding educational videos.
Images for Education
- 3D Toad - A new site for finding interactive educational 3D images.
- Humanline - A terrific new site for finding royalty free educational images.
- Pics4Learning - One of the most popular places for finding images to use in education.
Search Engines
Students browsing the internet for information can be a very tricky issue when having to deal w/ CIPA/COPPA compliance. That's why a lot of schools use a paid solution such as Nettrekker or something like that. However, there are some nice free alternatives that can be used in a school setting.
- KidRex - A safe search engine for kids powered by Google.
- Sweet Search - My favorite safe search engine to use by students.
- Top Marks - A nice place to find educational web content.
Content Management Systems
There are a ton of paid CMS solutions that are ideal for education such as Blackboard. However, this can get rather expensive for most districts. That being said there are some nice free alternatives that are being used in schools throughout the world.
- Edmodo - A free CMS/Social Network combined into one, made just for education.
- Moodle - Probably the most popular free CMS used in schools.
Mobile Phones in Education
- Cel.ly - A great way to use phones in education such as taking notes, messaging, and more.
- Remind101 - A safe/secure way to text message students and parents.
- SendHub - A fantastic secure way to send group messages to staff, students, and parents.
Educational Online Games
StorySmith is a fun inexpensive iPad app for digital storytelling. This app is dear to my heart as it focuses on a fantasy setting and students can select: backgrounds, characters, props, and add text. A pirate theme will be coming soon.
SpellingCity is one of the best and most popular sites around for students/teachers learning Vocabulary and Spelling. This is done through a nice educational portal that allows teachers to find or create word lists that they can then integrate into educational online games. Also, there is a very nice iOS app that allows to view lists and play games on the go.
ClassDojo is a site I've covered before and even done professional development on. This is one of the most intriguing sites I've seen in awhile and is ideal for behavior management. All of this is done online or iOS app in a fun and simple way. A teacher creates a class and then assigns either negative or positive "feedback" to a student by a simple click of a button. For example, a teacher can assign a "+" for positive behavior such as participation, or a "-" for negative behavior such as interrupting.
Biteslide (formerly known as BeeClip) is a fantastic site for students to create digital scrapbooks or slidebooks. These books are easy to create through a drag-n-drop interface and can include, videos, images, clipart, etc. Also, once these books are finished they can be downloaded, shared, and even embedded into a site. What makes this site so fantastic for educators is the educational portal that allows teachers to create student accounts w/out needing a student email address, and then ability to track students projects. A great site for digital storytelling or creating presentations!!
Printing Press is a wonderful online tool by ReadWriteThink that I found out about today on Twitter. This is an excellent place for students to go to create either a newspaper, brochure, or poster through the use of an online template/wizard. Once the item is finished it can then be saved/downloaded/ and shared via email.
UTellStory is a new site for digital storytelling that I just found about about from Larry Ferlazzo's blog. This is a nice site for uploading videos, images, and text to create a story. What makes UTellStory nice is that it has educational accounts for students and teachers. Another nice feature is the ability to embed a finished story into a site.
Popcorn Maker is a cool new site that I found out about from the award nominated blog, iLearn Technology. This is a great site for creating video mashups by dragging and dropping: video, audio, text, etc to create a finished product. Once finished a user can save and share their videos.
Through blogging and working w/ Ed Tech companies I come across a large amount of educational tools. To make things easier I have created top 10 lists, curated lists on Pinterest and Edshelf, and also created digital books, to help make things easier for myself and others. However, I always wanted to create a bucket list if I was starting in a new district/school etc. Hopefully, people will find this list useful and perhaps a nice way to save districts money.
I just received an email from Meograph an excellent site for 4D digital storytelling, regarding some new updates....
Basher's Presidents is an iOS app I had the pleasure of coming across today. This is a super fun educational app for learning all about the US Presidents. In this interactive app students can view a flipcard on each president which explains a little bit about the president as well as one quirky fact. Users can also partake in a timed game in placing the presidents in the correct order. Other nice features is the ability to vote on your favorite president and order a book on the US Presidents.
Level It Books is a wonderful new iOS app that is ideal for educators/parents/librarians who want to find out the Reading Level in a super convenient way. This app allows users to scan or type in a books ISBN # to get a books Reading Level instantly. However, there are a lot more features that makes this ideal for education, such as the ability to: create a digital library of books, maintain a class roster for checking out books and maintaining Reading Levels, submit your own books, and more.
MyClassroomIdeas is a new site that I just found out about from Richard Byrne's excellent blog. This is a blog very similar to Pinterest in where teachers can share different photos of their room, bulletin boards, projects, etc. by posting them to a board.
Astroloquiz is one of my favorite new educational iPad apps out there. This is a very engaging app that focuses on human behavior and social development through the use of answer questions. These questions are then related to the 12 signs of the Zodiac. There are other features to enjoy too such as: definitions, discussion questions for engaged learning, and more.
Code Monster is a new site for students for learning how to program in Javascript. This is ideal for middle school students on up and covers 58 lessons for learning how to program.
Beeclip is a wonderful site that I've blogged about before. This is an excellent easy to use site for creating digital scrapbooks. Best of all there is an educational portal which allows teachers to create students accounts, no student email required. Everything is drag and drop and very user friendly to create dynamic digital scrapbooks!!! Once a scrapbook is completed it can then be embedded into a site for sharing.
Cube Creator is a excellent new site by Read Write & Think. This is designed to help students w/ their writing by giving them templates (ie, cubes) for different types of stories. Once these cubes are created they can then be printed out and formed into actual cubes or shared via email. A cube can either be created from scratch or chosen by theme (bio, mystery, story).
Explania is a wonderful site for finding animated educational videos on a wide variety. There are over 5000 videos to choose from (ie, tutorials) as well as the ability to embed them on a site/blog.
The Grading Game is a wonderful iOS app that I just found out about from the equally wonderful site, Edshelf. This is a fun and sometimes hilarious game for finding typing and grammar mistakes. It's a very unique and easy to use game where people race against time to find all the mistakes. Also, it is a good way to reinforce grammar and helps students strengthen their skills.
Brainstormer is a free iOS app that I found out about from the new blog, iPad Apps 4 School. This is a fun app that is ideal for brainstorming by spinning a wheel. This wheel will has 3 categories such as: theme, setting, and location, and is ideal for generating writing prompts.
Miracle of Life is an excellent iPad app in English/Spanish for learning about the human growth cycle. This is ideal for Health teachers or parents that are teaching that "difficult" subject to students/kids. This is done in a very easy to to follow beautiful interface while students learn about the 3 phases of human growth: fertilization, gestation, and growth.
SendHub is a wonderful site/app for sending text messages to students/parents/groups in a safe secure way. SendHub creates a unique # for users to use to collaborate w/ students and parents. This is an ideal way to send class updates, notifications, and more to keep parents and students in the loop. Also, this is a nice tool to use for districts that use BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) for mobile learning.
Digital Raiders is a company that has a variety of online, Google Play, and iOS games that are ideal for education. Two of those being Math Apocalypse and Space Words Defense.